>As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history. Well, it's not. In living

>As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history. Well, it's not. In living memory: >The wealth of black Americans was halved by the 2008 financial crisis, in part because of predatory lending practices which specifically targeted them by race and misrepresented their creditworthiness https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/the-american-dream-shatters-in-prince-georges-county/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/t... >A million black farming families essentially had their wealth-producing land stolen from them: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-land-was-our-land/594742/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-la... https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/losing-ground/ https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/losing-ground/ >Multiple black activists pushing for more advantageous policy have been imprisoned and assassinated, with allegedly some incidents as recent as the last few years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luth.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tied-ferguson-protests-have-died-n984261 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... >Black students have become subject to levels of segregation - and associated disparities in educational quality - at levels rivalling those of pre-Brown v Board America https://www.propublica.org/article/segregation-now-full-text https://www.propublica.org/article/segregation-now-full-text https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation >Because many black workers were exempt from the initial impementation of Social Security and the GI Bill, their children (Silent Gen and Baby Boomers, currently in the process of passing on their inheritances) and grandchildren (Gen X and Millennials) are suffering the consequences in lost wealth-building opportunities >Countless black Americans have suffered from poor healthcare based on apathy and stereotypes https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-american-amputation-epidemic/ https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-a... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/black-americans-death-rate-covid-19-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/black-american... https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/02/20/why-are-black-women-at-such-high-risk-of-dying-from-pregnancy-complications https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/02/20/why-are-black-women... >Black Americans have watched a completely different and profoundly more compassionate response to the white people affected by the opioid epidemic than they experienced in the crack/cocaine epidemic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/crack-heroin-and-race/401015/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/crack-h... https://thewitnessbcc.com/crack-epidemic-opioid-crisis-race-america/ https://thewitnessbcc.com/crack-epidemic-opioid-crisis-race-... >Marijuana, long a a drug whose sale and use was the pretext for the overpolicing of black communities, and which provided off-the-record income for many marginalized from the mainstream economy, was legalized in several states, under schemes that made sure that the overwhelming majority of those who profited were white. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/22/marijuana-legalization-exposes-cannabis-industry-racial-injustice-incarceration-minorities-column/2836449002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/22/marijuana-... https://qz.com/1194143/even-after-legalization-black-americans-are-arrested-much-more-often-for-marijuana-offenses/ https://qz.com/1194143/even-after-legalization-black-america... https://psmag.com/economics/the-green-rush-is-too-white-hood-incubator-race-weed https://psmag.com/economics/the-green-rush-is-too-white-hood... >Historical atrocities were buried until after those afflicted were unable to see justice in their lifetimes https://tulsa.okstate.edu/news/shedding-light-local-history-teaching-about-tulsa-race-massacre https://tulsa.okstate.edu/news/shedding-light-local-history-... And, of course, bare-naked discrimination exists across aspects of American life, including employment, compensation, educational opportunity, freedom of movement, criminal justice, real estate, and on and on and on. When these and many more injustices were not directly impactful, they served as poignant examples of the extreme apathy, if not antipathy, American society has had for black Americans. On top of it all, black Americans still live under the specter of police departments nationwide, which have been allegedly infiltrated by white supremacist organizations, and which assuredly indoctrinate officers with racist training and policy, and root out anti-racist individuals. I'll leave you with https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/no-college-isnt-the-answer-reparations-are/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/... a response to Ta-Nehisi Coates' seminal work, The Case For Reparations (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...), which reopened the intellectual debate on racial justice with a focus on the subject above: racial injustice affecting living black Americans, however rooted it may be in the events of 50-60-70-150 years ago.